The Fortress of Glass by Drake David Read Free Book Online

said, the folks around Garric had their own ways of doing things.
    Soldiers milled around everywhere, but they were all part of the royal army who'd just landed. All the local people standing in the colonnades gaping at the fleet or hanging from the upper-story windows that overlooked the harbor were civilians. The women wore blouses and trousers same as the men did but they also had bonnets, some of them dangling with ribbons.
    Nobody seemed to stand much on ceremony, even here in the palace. Cashel didn't feel at home, exactly-he never would with this many people around. But he didn't feel near so out of place as he did back in Valles.
    Protas led Cashel through the portico and into the tall building on the other side. They were connected with a little covered walk; a dog-trot, Cashel would've called it back at home, but he supposed it had a fancier name if it was made of stone and the ceiling was painted with girls and bearded men with fishtails who swam with a sea serpent.
    "King Cervoran's apartments are up on the top of this building," Protas said. A servant curtseyed to him as they walked through the central hall; there were stairs up on either side of the room. "My rooms are in the east wing. Where will they put you, Cashel?"
    "Protas, I couldn't say," Cashel said. He thought about adding, "Close to Sharina is all that matters," but he decided he wouldn't. There wasn't much privacy either in a palace or a village like Barca's Hamlet, but Cashel wasn't one to talk about things that weren't anybody else's business.
    They went right on through to the other side of the building. There was a big plaza here, bare dirt but with occasional clumps of tough grass managing to survive.
    "This is where we hold the first-day markets every week," Protas explained. "The farmers come in from the fields with produce, and people in Mona sell what they've made too."
    There were new-made bleachers along the south edge; the wood was still raw and some planks oozed sap. That was nothing compared to the three-layer pyramid in the middle of the plaza, though. It'd been built from brushwood hurdles covered with boards and bunting. On the very top was a chest or cabinet that'd been draped with cloth of gold. Something lay on it, but Cashel couldn't tell what from down below.
    The boy stopped and looked at Cashel, apparently expecting him to say something. He didn't know what that should be, so he asked, "What's that, Protas?"
    "That's the pyre," Protas said. "Tomorrow it'll be lighted and King Cervoran will rise to the heavens. He'll be a god, then."
    The boy looked desperately unhappy. Cashel put an arm on his shoulder and turned them both back toward the building they'd walked through.
    "Let's see if we can find Princess Sharina," he said quietly. It was the first thing he could think of that didn't involve looking at a wizard's corpse.
    * * *
    "This is the queen's suite, ah, princess," said Lord Martous. He pulled open the door to the left at the head of the stairs. "It hasn't been used in, well, twelve years since the late queen passed over in childbirth, but I directed that it be aired out and put in order as soon as we learned that.... I hope you find it...."
    Sharina stepped into the suite. Tenoctris and Cashel, the latter carrying the satchel with the paraphernalia of the old wizard's art, followed her and Martous at a polite distance. Cashel was his usual calm, solid self, but Tenoctris was as silently tense as a cat sure there's a mouse hidding somewhere nearby.
    The suite had a short entrance passage, three main rooms, and a curtained alcove for a servant; she and Cashel wouldn't be needing that last. There was a hint of mildew in the air, but the walls were freshly washed. They were age-darkened oak wainscoting below a waist-high moulding with frescoes of fanciful landscapes from there to the ceiling. The damp had lifted out patches of plaster, leaving white blotches.
    Cashel smiled. "I like wall paintings," he said.
    "I'm sorry